The Way We Were

In my Teaching Science class, we've been considering the value of an inquiry-based classroom, one in which questions aren't simply asked and answered, and we're finished, thanks very much, have a good day. 

A teacher has to find out what a student already knows (assessing prior knowledge) and build on that, and the way to do this is to ask questions and not immediately supply the answers. 

A lecture or a classroom talk is not the same as a textbook, but today I found a science text that demonstrates how not to do this. 

This is a page from a 1961 text, book three in the ABC Science series. What if a teacher asked the questions on this page and then answered them as the book does? A student has no time for conjecture. 

"How do plants get the oxygen they need?" Silence. Imagine the answers. "By eating dirt." "The air." "It breathes." 

A teacher could hear the misconceptions and steer the conversation. "Eating dirt is an interesting idea. Can you tell me more about that?"

Eventually the discussion covers processes the plant uses to survive, but meanwhile the student has learned to think, to guess, to feel it's acceptable not to know, and to collaborate. And eventually, s/he knows how a plant gets oxygen. 

A science textbook probably shouldn't contain only questions for conjecture. I'm not saying this book is a failure. 

But teachers shouldn't teach like a book. What teachers need is to have less information freely dispensed, and more questions that leave everybody in the room a bit hungrier to find answers for themselves.